By John Helmer in Moscow China has joined an English peer, a Bush Administration retiree, and a special Kremlin envoy in the attempt to persuade or pressure the Guinean Government into halting its court proceedings and fraud and tax audits of international mining companies, and restore concession rights, corruptly acquired, to Guinea’s resource treasure. At […]

By John Helmer in Moscow and Conakry Alexey Vasiliev, a Russian professor specializing in the history of Saudi Arabia, flew to the west African republic of Guinea last week in a bid to lobby the Guinean Prime Minister, Jean-Marie Dore, on behalf of United Company Rusal, the bauxite and alumina producer in Guinea. Rusal is […]

March 30, 2010 Stephanie Baker and Yuriy Humber for the athletic feat of reporting Mikhail Prokhorov’s all-win business career without detecting a single foul, penalty, or loss. Link: http://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Mikhail-Prokhorov-May-2010.pdf

By John Helmer in Moscow In an unusual break with the traditional hold Russian steel companies like to keep on their domestic coking-coal sources, and secure the future expansion of their steel capacity with ample reserves, the Evraz group is reported to be considering the sale of two of its Kemerovo mines to global and […]

By John Helmer in Moscow It’s fashionable in trade these days, especially when delicate consumer sensitivities are involved, to call a slaughter-house a meat-packing plant, as if what goes in the front-door can be made to seem as tasteful as what goes out the back. The German slogan, “Arbeit Macht Frei”, tried the technique on […]

By John Helmer in Moscow Prime Minister Vladimir Putin tried sweet-talking the Prime Minister of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Jabr al-Thani, in Moscow this week on “closer coordination” between the world’s leading exporters of natural and liquefied gas (LNG). At stake are the growing deliveries of shipborne Qatari LNG to European ports, versus the shrinking deliveries […]

By John Helmer in Moscow Visits by politicians to banana boats are almost unprecedented outside the tropical climes; no Russian prime minister has ever boarded one before. Almost as rare is it for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to favour a foreign-owned shipping enterprise when it is competing against a Russian enterprise owned, not only by […]

By John Helmer in Moscow Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who also chairs the Russian bailout bank Vnesheconombank (VEB), asked Friday for the US Government to signal its support for at least two oligarch-owned Russian companies in the US. The remark, which has taken State Department officials by surprise, mentioned Norilsk Nickel and steelmaker Severstal, whose […]

By John Helmer in Moscow In the first of a worldwide series of trials scheduled against JP Morgan Chase, the US-based banking colossus, a judge of the New South Wales Supreme Court in Sydney decided last week that an attempt by JP Morgan to claim A$50.18 million (dollars are Australian unless noted) in fees was […]

By John Helmer in Moscow Russia’s dominant diamond miner, state-owned Alrosa, has grabbed the crown from De Beers as the world’s largest diamond producer – and most profitable one, too. According to a press release, reporting what was said at the executive board meeting of Alrosa in Mirny, early this week, a draft annual report […]